The Curious Kitten And Her Secret Admirer
by Metropolis Kid
Summary: Coming home from a mission, Seras finds that someone has left her a rose and a mysterious letter. Who could her secret admirer be? Anime-verse. One-Shot.


**The Curious Kitten And Her Secret Admirer**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own any material contained within this story. All copyrighted content remains the property of the person, people, or organization that holds the copyright. This story is solely for fun.

* * *

Seras fired, the shell from her portable artillery canon tearing through the chests of four ghouls before finally detonating in the center of the pack. Metal shrapnel and white phosphorous flew through the air digging into dead flesh and melting down walking corpses. The sickeningly sweet smell of burning meat was thick in the air, its odor rushing in and filling the Draculina's lungs with each unneeded breath she took.

The corner of Seras's mouth pulled upward, her lips curling into a sadistic grin as she stood in the midst of carnage and death and her vampiric side began to assert itself. And with an expectant, anticipatory look, which bordered on the throws of ecstasy, the former police girl dropped to one knee as she propped her Harkonnen against the floor, opened up the loading chamber and locked another round in place.

Then the watch on Seras's wrist beeped, only once, signaling the changing hour, and suddenly all the joy vanished from her face. It was midnight -- no, now past midnight -- on what had, a moment before, been February the 13th. Now it was the 14th, and Seras blood cooled as this realization hit her full force.

It was Valentine's Day, a happy holiday filled with red hearts, cards exchanged between lovers, sweet candies, stuffed animals and romantic nights of magic. And where was she during this celebration of love? In an abandoned warehouse fending off a horde of ghoulish zombies. And what was even worse was that she realized she was starting to actually enjoy spending her nights in such a manner.

Seras frowned as she realized how she'd started to change from a 'good girl' into a blood thirsty monster. Somehow it didn't seem right. This time last year she'd been on a mission too, her unit dispatched to deal with a hostage situation. Sure, it wasn't how most nineteen-year-old girls spent Valentine's Eve, but at least back then she'd had a boyfriend, someone with whom she could look forward to spending the next day. And she'd had friends too, her fellow cops, that she could listen and talk to about their different plans for the lovers' holiday... even if several of them had merely grunted or chuckled at her youthful exuberance for what many of them pessimistically regarded as nothing more than a 'greeting card' holiday.

Even still... She'd had friends. She'd had a bo'. She'd had people to talk to, people who cared about her. And now... and now they were all dead – gone – and she was left alone in a nightmarish new world filled with death, destruction and crazy lunatics.

The Draculina sighed as she rose, her reloaded Harkonnen ready for the next group of undead abominations. She continued on through the warehouse, mopping up the ghouls who still remained, even after her master had finished having his 'fun' with the resident 'freak' vampire. But it was a different Seras who now roamed the deserted corridors. Gone was the blood thirsty monster, and in her place was a sad girl who mourned her lost life as a human.

* * *

Seras returned to the Hellsing mansion at half past two; and, to the fledgling's surprise, she found a single, long stemmed rose lying on her table. Raising an eyebrow, Seras cautiously approached the foreign object, almost as if she expected it to sprout fangs and suddenly attack her. But, of course, the flower was quite ordinary in nature; and Seras was, thankfully, spared the necessity of dueling a demoniacally possessed rose.

Instead she held the flower up to her nose and breathed in its sent. She smiled as the familiar, pleasant and peaceful smell entered her, tickling her olfactory senses. And then Seras noticed the folded piece of paper that had been tucked in-between the flower she now held and the table it had rested upon a moment ago.

With a curious expression, the vampire reached out for the piece of paper. She grabbed it, opened it up and began to read. "Happy Valentines Day, Seras. I'll be outside the Cheddar church at sunset."

Seras continued to stare at the note for another minute. It was unsigned, and the letters were printed – marking it nearly impossible for her identify the handwriting without a sample with which to run a side by side comparison. It seemed she had a genuine secret admirer on her hands.

"Hmmm," Seras hummed as she twirled her rose with one hand and tapped the piece of paper against her chin with the other. "I wonder who could've left this," she mused aloud before pragmatically deciding that she'd find out at sunset.

The fledgling tried to put the question, of who her admirer might be, out of her mind as she showered, changed and turned in a couple of hours before the rising sun would've really forced her to. However, the question she'd asked herself earlier just wouldn't leave her alone, and her nose crinkled up as she considered the possibilities.

Could it have come from her master? Somehow she doubted it. She didn't think her master would be likely to wish her a happy Valentines Day considering the fact that it was a holiday steeped in love and other romantic mushy-goo-goo... and named after a Catholic saint.

Perhaps one of the soldiers then? For the most part they seemed a little uncomfortable around her, many doubtless due to the knowledge that she was really a vampire. But could she have mistaken the cause of one soldier's nervousness? Could it be that one of them fidgeted and seemed agitated around her not because she was a creature of darkness, but because he actually had a crush on her?

No, she doubted the letter was left one of the soldiers. Even if one of them did have a crush on her, the letter mentioned Cheddar. And while that area did not exactly provoke happy memories, it was a location from her past. Which meant that whoever left the letter and rose was likely someone who knew her well enough to know about that connection, and she wasn't close enough to any of the soldiers for them to know about the night she became a vampire.

So if it wasn't her master and it wasn't one of the soldiers, who was left? '_Could... could it be from Walter?' _Seras wondered, and her brow furled. The Hellsing Butler had always been kind to her... but then he was kind to just about everyone – except for Integra's enemies of course. And he was old – old enough to be her fa-grandfather. How could he possibly?!

Seras diverted her train of thought as she realized that she was guilty of ageism and the revelation caused her to flush in embarrassment. Even if Walter was old, he was still a man, and there was nothing about his age that prevented him from developing interest in a woman.

Still, even if he did have an interest in her, Seras's own feelings were more akin to those of a daughter than anything else. She just couldn't picture herself in a relationship with Walter – it would just be too weird. So, if it was him who left the letter, Seras determined to let the man down gently but make it clear that she wasn't interested in him – that way.

The Draculina frowned as she found that she'd exhausted her lists of suspects and wondered how she'd gone from a mansion full of possible suitors to none at all. "Hmph," she huffed as she rolled over and tucked an arm under her pillow to bolster its height. Why couldn't the guy have just signed the bloody note? This secret admirer stuff was for the birds.

* * *

It was five minutes passed sunset, and Seras stood outside the same church where she'd become a member of the undead. She shuddered as memories of that night flashed through he mind. She saw her friends dying one by one and then turning against her. She relived the fear of that lecherous 'priest's' enthrallment, the slow unzipping of her jacket, his cold finger upon her neck and his evil whispers in her head.

Why had she come back here again? Oh yes, it was all thanks to that rose and that bloody, mysterious letter – her secret admirer who was already five minute late. Seras tapped her foot and growled.

This was stupid. True, she had nothing to fear from this place now. The Draculina was confident that at this point she could handle any monstrosity Cheddar could dream up to throw at her. Only a _true_ vampire... or a Holy Knight of God could threaten her now. And true vampires and Holy Knights were both extremely rare. In fact, based on what she'd heard from Integra, it sounded like her and Alucard were the only two true vampires left, and their master was the only Holy Knight in all of England.

No, this deserted town posed no danger beyond the ghosts of the past which haunted Seras's memories. Even still, she didn't like being here... and her admirer hadn't shown up. Just how long did he expect her to wait in such a horrible place? He had to know about it's connection to her past!

Seras tapped her foot again and checked her watch. That was it. If this guy didn't show up in the next five minutes, she was out of here. The fledgling let out a slight, proud snort as she came to this decision and determined to stick to it.

But just then, the vampire caught a flash of movement in her peripheral vision. Seras turned her head in the direction from which she'd observed the flash only to see a dark silhouette moving against the waning twilight; and to her surprise, it was heading _away_ from her.

Seras scowled as a realization dawned on her. There was no secret admirer. The whole thing had simply been a game, a cruel joke someone had pulled on her to see if they could pull her strings and make her dance. And she'd fallen for it in showing up right where they wanted, when they wanted. And now that they'd succeed in their little game they were just going to run off and leave her.

She felt hurt. She felt foolish. But most of all, Seras felt anger.... _very_ angry.

The pleasant, albeit spunky, former police girl melted away as Seras's blood boiled in her veins and her vampiric side took over. With a feral growl, the Draculina took off after the departing wraith, chasing down the cruel puppet master to exact her revenge upon him. She ran and tackled the silhouette to the ground, pinned him there and only then – as she laid prone over him – did his appearance register for what it was.

The figure beneath Seras was wearing a black sweatshirt with its hood up, and this had prevented Seras from seeing his face before. But now that he was below her, looking up at her, she saw the decaying flesh that was the earmark of all ghouls. "What the...?!" Seras exclaimed, surprise overcoming rage.

"Hello, Kitten," the ghoul beneath Seras rasped in what the vampire assumed was meant to be a roguish apologetic tone.

The vampire's eyebrows knit together as the familiar nickname struck her and she examined the ghoul beneath her more closely. "Jack? It... it is you! B-but how?"

"It..." The ghoul – Jack – slowly began to reply, his voice maintaining that raspy quality that Seras guessed might be all it was capable of given his current condition. "It took time. At first, I had no control, no will of my own. It was as if I was a mere extension of someone... something else, a powerful, evil maleficence. But that feeling faded the first night, and I was left to wander the land aimlessly, surviving on nothing but my most primitive, base instinctive drives. Eventually, over time, fragments of my former life began to return.

"Your face was the first thing I remembered, even before my own name. But I had no knowledge to go with it, just a single, angelic picture floating around in my head. In time this too changed. I remembered other things about you: the way you walked; conversations we'd had, the subtle hint of your perfume lingering in the room for a few minutes even after you'd left; the cute way your nose crinkled up as you pondered some question you didn't know the answer to.

"My memory is still... spotty. But I remember enough to know that I've been in love with you for quite some time. Perhaps I wasn't even aware of it in my former life, but I know that I loved you even back then. Guess there's noting quite like dying to help you put things in perspective," Jack said sardonically.

"I spent months trying to figure out what had happened to you, and weeks thinking of a way to reintroduce myself. Then I remembered about Valentine's Day, and I thought that would be perfect."

"Then... why'd you run?" Seras asked, blushing slightly from her former mentor/partner's tale.

"Because... because I... Look at me. Look at what I've become. Death hasn't been... as 'kind' me as it has you. How could you... I mean look at me."

"So, you chickened out because you thought I'd take one look at you and run away?"

"Yeah... or you know, blow my head off – if half the things I've heard about your new job are true."

"You really think I'm that shallow?" the vampire asked, her tone falling somewhere between hurt and offended.

And Jack smiled nostalgically. "No, Kitten, you're the least shallow person I've ever known... or can remember at least. … But, everyone has their limits and... well, as I said, just loo-"

The rest of Jack's sentence was muffled and unintelligible, as Seras leaned her head down and pressed their two pairs of dead lips into a firm kiss. Mouths opened and tongues danced as the vampire ignored the slightly decayed taste of her partner's mouth. She did her best to put that out of her mind, but she kept her eyes open, her own crimson orbs scanning the depths of her partner's completely white ones – finding the small flame of life that still burned in the deep recesses of those seemingly void eyes.

After a moment, Seras pulled back. She smiled kindly down at Jack. "You know, you've got some self esteem issues... We'll have to work on those," she quipped as she pulled herself off of him and extended an arm to help him to his feet.

Jack grinned. "Yeah, I guess we will," he chuckled. "Seras Victoria... will you be my Valentine?"

The vampire giggled. "Yes, Jack, I believe I will."

* * *

Well, happy Valentine's Day. I hope you all enjoyed. Please drop a review and let me know if you liked it. Thanks.

PS. Oh, and in case any of you are wondering, Jack's not an OC. He's a canon character from the anime – though he wasn't in it very long. :P LoL

Have a good day, and God bless.

Metropolis Kid.


End file.
